Leaders Meet: Innovation

BAFTA, London
17 January 2019

Leaders teamed up with the NBA and SAP in London for the fifth year running to explore the evolving world of innovation. Over 300 futurologists, strategists and business leaders gathered at BAFTA, to explore what lies ahead for technology, consumer trends and connectivity in 2019.

Ted Leonsis

Owner of the Wizards (NBA), Capitals (NHL) and Mystics (WNBA), Ted is one of the most forward thinking owners in sports.

He is a big driver of maximizing sports betting in North America envisioning sports arenas becoming a type of casino.

He’ll be discussing the future of team ownership and how he sees sports teams maximizing their value through the use of technology and innovation.

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Omar Berrada

Chief Operating Officer

Omar will be delivering a presentation on the ‘Future of Brand Partnerships’.

Prior to CFG, Omar worked at FC Barcelona for almost 8 years, as a Senior Media Business Development Manager and as Head of Sponsorship.

Prior to his role as COO, Omar was the SVP, Group Commercial Director of City Football Group.

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Kristin Bernert

Senior Vice President, Business Operations

Kristin is responsible for bringing Madison Square Garden colleagues together to create world-class marketing, sales, partnership, and community relations opportunities.

Kristin is an experienced sports business executive previously working for NBA, Palace Sports & Entertainment and Cleveland Indians.

The Knicks are the most valuable NBA team worth an estimated $3.6 billion according to Forbes.

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Ben Esser

Director E-Commerce & Omnichannel

Participating on a session focusing on ‘The Future Of Retail’. Fanatics, Inc. is an American online retailer of licensed sportswear, sports equipment, and merchandise, formed in 1995 and headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida.

Fanatics have been doing some very innovative things in the retail space signing bespoke deals with the likes of Oregon University and Aston Villa which is breaking the previous retail structures.

They’re one of the first companies looking to take advantage of the esports retail space, signing a deal with Activision Blizzard which has previously been an untapped revenue stream.

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David Gibbs

Director of Digital Media

Joining a panel discussing ‘The Future Of Broadcast’. Everything from AR/VR to OTT and media rights.

Sam Farber

He maintains relationships with platform partners and is charged with defining the league’s digital strategy across all properties (NBA, WNBA and G-League).

The NBA has the largest social media presence of any sports league in the world. They’re always pushing the boundaries, whether it’s their broadcast strategy (paying for the last quarter of a game) or effectively using their star players as content creators.

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Ben Lavender

Chief Product Officer

Ben leads the vision, strategy and development of DAZN’s growing product portfolio. Prior to joining DAZN in 2015, Ben was at Amazon where he was the product leader for the Amazon Video Store.

He has also worked at LOVEFiLM, launching their streaming video service on web, mobile and TV devices; which was acquired by Amazon. Ben was also at the BBC where he created BBC iPlayer.

Ben has been named as one of the top ten technology and Internet innovators in the world by The Observer.

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Matthew Wood

Senior Vice President, Commercial

Matt will be joining a session looking at the ‘Future of Travel’.

Norwegian has revolutionized the long-haul flight industry offering comparatively cheap flights to destinations previously out of reach to certain consumers.

He is an established aviation professional with over 14 years’ experience across airlines and airports. Before joining Norwegian, Matt had previous experience at EasyJet and Wizz Air.

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Matt Spencer

Vice President of Sales, EMEA & APAC

Matt is the Take Two (T2) Vice President of Sales for EMEA & APAC.

Over the past 10 years he has helped transform and grow T2’s sales across the company’s portfolio brands including the NBA 2K series and Grand Theft Auto franchise.

Prior to this position at T2 he relaunched Warner Bros EMEA video games proposition in 2007, was the UK & Export Sales Director also at T2 and a founding member of the original Xbox team in the UK.

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Finlay Clark

UK Country Manager, Waze

Finlay is the UK Country Manager of Waze, responsible for revenue, partnerships and growth of the crowd-sourced traffic and navigation app.

He joined the company in 2016 having previously worked with Google’s top tier retail and eCommerce clients.

He has also worked at Big Mouth Media. Finlay and his colleagues collaborate with transport authorities, broadcasters and advertisers, showcasing how Waze data can be effective to make cities run more efficiently.

Event Overview

Leaders Meet: Innovation was an exclusive invitation- only event for over 300 senior decision makers in sport, entertainment, technology and business.

The purpose was to provide an elite networking platform for attendees and a content stream that would delve into the future of technology, consumer trends, content and connectivity – and examine the implications ahead for sport.

Programme Teaser

The Future of

Travel

The Future of

Stadia

The Future of

Retail

The Future of

Cities

We continually craft and refine the agenda leading up to the event. If you'd like to know more about what we have planned, please get in touch.